Emma's Rant
by Blue Zombie
Summary: Some Emma ranting and venting after the school shooting, and hooking up with Jay.
1. Chapter 1

"Emma, what's wrong?" That was my mom with her tiny squeaky voice and her huge concern. And they were right, they were all right. Since the shooting I've been off my rocker.

"Nothing, it's nothing, okay?" I ran to the basement, my room in the dungeon. But I didn't really mind giving up my room for baby Jack. But in a way I did. I minded giving up all of my mom's attention to Snake and Jack. Now I only had a third of what was once all for me.

I didn't mean that nothing was wrong but it wasn't exactly a lie. Sometimes the words for what is wrong have too many angles to come out of your mouth. Or sometimes there just aren't any words at all.

I laid across my bed, too drained to cry. I was dry. I had nothing left. What was the good in things? In trying to save things like rain forests and endangered species when I could barely save myself? When I nearly get myself shot down in the halls of my own high school, how in the world could I help anyone or anything else?

And Jay. What was I doing with him, going to the ravine like that? But things weren't exactly as black and white as everyone thought, I wasn't this good girl being corrupted by him. Maybe I had the seed of the corruption in me all along, and maybe Jay could be better than anyone would give him credit for. It's just like you fall into these molds and then that's what people think you are, who you are. And maybe it's a part of it but it's never every part.

I sighed. I wanted to go upstairs and tell my mom what was wrong, but I wouldn't. It was like I didn't exactly know. Take Rick. He shot Jimmy and maybe Jimmy will never walk again and he tried to shoot me. But people were brutal to Rick. Was it brutal enough to deserve what Rick did? He must have thought so, or some part of him did, and who am I to say? I don't exactly know what actions deserve what response, what's justice and what's insanity. I have no idea.

If you look at it like karma, Rick was a real jerk to Terry. Then Jimmy and Spinner and Jay and Alex and me, we were real jerks to Rick. And then…where was forgiveness in it all?

The only one who makes me feel better, makes me feel like I'm really myself, is Jay. That's why I go to the ravine and seek him out. To escape. To be me, not some idealized Emma Nelson who saves the environment and does well in school and has it all together. That girl might be gone.

I got up and pushed on the window, pushed it into the blackness. Slipped out and along the streets to the ravine, and in the distance I saw his van. Sometimes all you can do is run and hope you can outrace it, the fear and negativity and the sickness. Sickness of your image and your shadow and yourself. Since Rick leveled that gun at me I just didn't know what to think.

Laughter and drunken yells, the smell of beer and whiskey in the crisp air, and I saw Jay sitting on the picnic table, baseball cap low over his eyes. Then he saw me and smiled his devil crooked smile.

No one understood what it was I saw in him, or he saw in me. Manny was so sure that he was scum and that I was some goody goody. Even my best friend didn't suspect that I was more than what I seemed.

"Emma," Jay said, and I smiled, feeling nervous and happy and something indescribable all at once.

"Jay," I went over to him, scooted up beside him.

"What's wrong?" he said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.

"Everything," I said, but smiled because now it didn't matter. As if it ever did.

"C'mon," he said after looking at me for a moment. He got up and took my hand and I went with him.


	2. Chapter 2

And now everything seemed okay, lost in the speckled blue of his eyes. I liked the look of my hand next to his. Liked the way his teeth were crooked and touched his bottom lip. Closed my eyes and saw Rick on the other end of his gun, felt Toby clutching me and shaking. I guess Sean had saved me, but Sean had been neatly swallowed up by Wasaga Beach. Wouldn't it be nice if we all had a Wasaga Beach to go to?

Pine needles crunching under our sneakers, and I followed him through the darkness to his van, my hand in his. I watched his long strides and licked my lips, tasting my lipstick. The conversations and the laughter of the others was growing fainter, coming in and out like a distant radio station, the signal weak.

I could smell pot and Jay took out a fat little joint from his pocket.

"Want a hit, Emma?" He only ever called me Emma when we were alone, and my name sounded more intimate than any endearment the way he said it. I looked at the joint, looked at him as he lit it with a practiced hand, and I nodded, the pungent odor already in my nose.

I inhaled, coughed like crazy while he laughed. Kissed him as time slowed down. My taste buds had never been so sharp. I could anticipate every move before he made it. I could see the music in the air. I knew for a fact that I wasn't the girl everyone was used to me being. Beyond a fact, beyond a shadow of a shadow.

He kissed me, long and slow, and the unreality of it all was driving me mad. Jay. Who could have ever thought? He laughed, his mouth open and I could count his teeth, and I laughed, too.

"Want to go eat?" he said, and I nodded, suddenly more hungry than I had ever been, the thought of the experience of eating seemed alive with endless tantalizing possibilities. We stepped from the van, and I thought I could see every leaf moving in its own separate arc. So I hadn't died in the school that day, it was so I could experience this moment, and the next, and the next.

We got in his car and somehow he drove when I could barely handle sitting there, the music visible and crowding me in the small front seat, the lyrics taking on new and unseen resonances. He turned to me and smiled for one long moment, and I felt again the whisper of the bullet as it grazed my cheek.

The Mexican restaurant was super bright, the fluorescent lights overhead overwhelming and we squinted against them. I couldn't help staring at the straight perfectly black hair of the Mexican men behind the counter, and by the smell of the food alone it was as though I could taste it. I watched Jay laugh, watched the way his head tilted back and his eyes strayed to the side.

Quesadillas, guacamole, burridos, tacos, the Spanish names all similar to the French I always heard when I went to Montreal. I dipped the hard corn chips in the salsa, felt every spice explode on my tongue, felt the rich nutrients entering directly into my blood stream.

Back in the car, the road and the air going by so smoothly, nothing to impede them. The lights of the other cars floating in space, and somehow Jay knew what to do. I didn't. I just let it go by me. He put his hand on my knee and I could feel it against my skin, and from there the sensation went everywhere.

"I could drive you home," he said, and I read different meanings into the offer, it split into layers of dark and light. So many meanings I couldn't keep them all straight, and I shook my head in the confusion.

"No," I whispered, "no,"

So we drove on, past my small neighborhood and all the small expectations of me, and out into the beyond, beyond the ravine and all that it contained. People were still there, still in the same spots, and I realized that hardly any time had passed at all.


End file.
